


Three days

by carmesim



Category: Muse
Genre: Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carmesim/pseuds/carmesim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt gets a little help from Dom on the process of writing a new song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three days

The first day was Thursday, and there was something missing.

He tried playing that last bit again, and then again, but it still didn't sound quite right. He tried one more time. Never mind that he had been sitting there for nearly two hours, that the studio around him had now fallen into that sudden empty-building silence, that he might be risking getting himself locked up in the place for the night. He had been obsessing over that particular piece of music for two days, for the entire night now, and he was not going to stop until he got it right.

He had it in his head; he just needed to get it down to his fingers, over the piano keys. He started playing it one more time.

"You trying to set a new record, there?"

Matt's head snapped up, the interrupted music rang loud in the room. Dom stood at the other end of the piano, looking tired. "That's the shortest thing I've ever heard you work so long in."

"Oh, hi." the other man mumbled, snapping straight back to the music. Back to the very same piece.

Dom shook his head, smiled, walked over to the piano and squeezed as much as possible of himself into the narrow stool, next to Matt.

Blue eyes flickered up to acknowledge him, a slight smirk, but his fingers continued to play, nearly automatically.

"They said we can set up the drums." Dom said.

"Uh?"

"In the pool, you know, we talked about putting the bass drum in there and trying those acoustics, remember?"

"Oh."

"We were already thinking of contacting a private pool," Dom rattled on, "the management of the studio wasn’t so keen on letting us set up all that electric stuff in there, but then Rich came up with the idea of using those supports they have for japanese drums, you remember we saw them last time we were there, at that show thing? I think they might be perfect! Anyway, they said we could go ahead and do it."

"This afternoon?"

"Yeah, just a bit after you left."

"That's good."

He stopped; tried a variation; returned to the original piece. Started repeating it again. Dom sat beside him, and watched.

"We might do it next monday." he said after a while.

"Ok."

"I mean, the guy said it would be all right on monday, and I think it's cool we can do it so quickly..." Dom trailed off, under the incessant piano.

He watched as Matt hesitated, scratched his chin, mussed his blond hair, sniffed and then resumed a recent variation. Then it was back to the start. Dom listened. After a while: "I broke up with Andrew last night."

Matt jumped. Hs finger banged a low key heavily, making Dom jump too. "So you ARE listening to me you ass!" he laughed.

"Course I'm listening, ya poof, the hell are you talking about?!" Matt yelled, wide-eyed.

"I'm talking about Andrew." Dom answered simply.

"And who the fuck is Andrew?" Matt's eyes were still wide, voice rather high.

"Andrew's the guy I'd been seeing for about a month."

"You were seeing a guy?"

"Did you hear what I've just said ??"

"Yeah I've heard but..." Matt chuckled. "I thought you were taking the mick off me or something." his tone softened, incredulous.

"As in me acting like the gay guy in the band as usual?" Dom asked.

"Yeah I mean..." Matt started to laugh, then checked himself. "Dom mate, you being serious?"

The drummer smiled at Matt's suddenly grave face. "Yeah man, I'm being serious. Get back to your song." He got up, and walked out of the room.

"What, Dom..." Matt got up, saw him walk down the hall.

And realized he couldn't follow, because he simply had no idea of what to say.

***

The next day was Friday, and he couldn't make himself go down to the studio.

He could hear soft childish laughter coming up from the yard below, and he knew Chris would not bother about him with such a lovely weather outside, at least not for a while. He wondered if Dom would come knocking, half-hoped for it all day.

The morning passed, and his head was immersed in memories.

He thought of the hairy geek that used to head-bang next to him when they went to some concert or another together. He thought of early songs and crazy guitar riffs that Dom somehow made work with his drumming, of feeling music just fall into place. He thought of fingers casually grabbing his scalp and preventing him from falling face-first into his own puddle of puke. Of sweat, and a manic smile, and the euphoria that prevented Dom from saying one single phrase without the word 'fuck', after a good concert.

He tried to pin down the exact moment when the gay joke came up, and why it kept coming up ever since. It made him think of having wrestled Dom down under his drums that first time, and then of how much he enjoyed the quick chaos of limbs and laughter and his ribs being black and blue from the kit poking him in a dozen different places. It was unbelievably silly, as was Dom, the Dom he had learned to know, at least.

Matt smoked, and paced. He just couldn't understand why he'd been so damn shocked at Dom's words. How could it be that he had never spoken about it to him in a normal way. Like, over a beer, or after they'd consumed two big bottles of champagne between them, after a gig.

It reminded him of a very strange evening, of Dom sitting to the right of a mini-bar, himself sitting on the left, and talking about some dead rocker as the varied bottles were consumed. Of a warm weight in his arms, on his lap, and laughter, and closeness, and someone's lips on his, and not thinking that was so very strange at all.

Then thinking started to annoy him, because it brought him no answers. Because his unanswered questions brought to mind some of his own lyrics, about not realizing things, and he lit another cigarette, finding himself pathetic.

I mean, he _knew_ Dom. Had never needed to wonder at his sex life because Dom usually told him all about it. It was just the way things went.

He had been so excited about going into the studio and working on their new stuff, about being together with his friends again after a break. Somehow, unlike over previous breaks, he Dom and Chris hadn't spoken that much this time. Chris gone abroad with his family, Matt himself dedicating himself to his first steady girl in a damn good while, and Dom...

He got up, went over to the closed window. The day was fading in beautiful dark blue hues, the stars coming out slowly. He still had trouble with all that green and quiet, not a sky-scraper or noisy car in sight. The perfect place for focusing in the music; not so perfect for brooding over the way you fucked up with your best friend. In any normal capital of the world he might have just gone down to a pub, or walked into a crowded street to alleviate his thoughts. But out here, all he had were the trees, and the big black sky up above.

He had missed Dom. Missed him enough that, realizing such an important fact about his friend had gone unnoticed, hurt him in a rather strange way. Not that it changed anything knowing Dom was gay, or that he seemed to like guys as well or something. But he still wondered why he had been so surprised to find out.

Was it just because he hadn’t seen it coming, or was it the way this guy Andrew had simply popped up out of the blue, so close to Dom in the exact period in which the group had been apart?

His gaze fell onto the desk, to his cell phone, sitting there just a snatch away. Matt himself certainly had not been lonely over those quiet weeks. He could call her- but no. His stomach turned at the very thought of discussing Dom with his girlfriend. Turned again once he realized just that. He started seeing the pattern, seeing the connections between facts and feelings. Felt he might panic if he remained in this silence for too long.

Night had fallen.

He turned away from the window, left the room quickly, long hands buried deep in his pockets, aching to be put to use.

***

Dom finds him around five a.m.

He is alone with his piano, facing down the black and white, hearing the silence ring off the paneled walls.

When Dom passes by the long window, Matt beckons him come inside, and his friend does.

"Tell me what you think, will you?" Matt plays the intro and the rest of the new song, a sad and cold ballad.

Dom nods along. "Hmmm, it can get a bit epic, yeah. It's nice."

"I was thinking of going up like this," Matt explains, "for the chorus, kinda like _Siiing for absoluution_..., you know?"

"Yeah, and go on, building up, right." Dom sits down uncomfortably next to him, and this time Matt scoops over to give him more room. "You got something in mind for the rest of the lyrics?"

"Oh, just, you know, 'my love, I only think of you', that kind of shit, so far."

"I like it, it's kitsch and all, a bit Elton John." Dom laughs.

"You know I dream of being like him, Dom," Matt laughs, "the flashy piano and the clothes, you're not the only closet case in this band, 'know."

Dom's face lights up in a natural smile, makes Matt think it's still the same old joke between them- and then Dom's eyes meet his, and the smile is gone.

"Listen, about what I said that day..." the drummer starts.

"You don't have to tell me anything, mate," Matt cuts in. "It's I who should be apologizing, I reacted like a total prick."

"Not any more than the usual."

"Fuck off- no, I mean, really Dom, I'm sorry."

But Dom's already laughing out, and, after a while, Matt mutters, "pfff, can't talk seriously to you, can I!" and starts laughing too.

"Actually, there's nothing to talk about." Dom says, as their laughter stops. "He was a good fuck, Andrew, but a bit too stupid to hang around for long. I suppose I was just overdoing it to make you listen."

"I really was listening, you know. You say a lot of bullshit but I’m always listening." Matt says, soberly. “So it was you who dropped him?”

"Yeah."

"Then you were just being picky, and all."

"The guy was bloody brick wall !"

"So, how long have you been seeing guys?"

"A while." Dom shrugged. "On and off, Andrew was my first kind of steady thing."

"D'you remember that night in Moscow? The one by the mini-bar?" Matt asks, as casually as possible. "Had you already started, you know, dating guys, by then?"

Dom pauses for a good moment. Lowers his eyes. "You mean that kiss and stuff, when we were pissed?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck, you tasted like shit." Dom jokes, stretching. “It wasn’t—“

"I liked that kiss." Matt says quietly.

Dom stops, like a deer in head-lights. Matt, watches his face grow serious, watches his blond friend watch _him_ , face open and vulnerable, the questions visible in his big eyes. He can tell he's about to bolt. But Matt keeps his gaze steady, sure of what he is trying to say, fighting his own urge to run away.

"Matt..."

"D'you want to hear the whole song, with all the lyrics and stuff?" Matt smiles, suddenly.

And Dom smiles back. "Sure."

***  
Sometimes the songs come to him like bits and pieces of music, and they put them together with the guitar, the bass, or the piano, as if they were working on a puzzle. At other times, he has big obsessive ideas he spends half a day working on, and only asks for Chris' and Dom's opinions after a while.

And sometimes the songs come from entirely different places, unfolding within his life like reflections of his own feelings, and continuations of his thoughts. Those always prove to be the most difficult to work upon.

Matt's new song flows evenly on the piano, dark and beautiful. Dom sits next to him, and listens.

Sometimes the songs speak all the words he cannot form, the feelings he is afraid to show.

When Matt finishes, he looks up at his friend's eyes. And he thinks he might have found what he was missing.

**Author's Note:**

> (baby's first Muse fic XD )


End file.
